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viernes, 8 de octubre de 2010

Flavours of Spain, part 6: Flan de Huevo Cupcakes

Yep, I’ve gone MAD!!!

As if it wasn’t difficult enough to do a “Flan” that doesn’t get destroyed when trying to take it out of the mould, I’ve decided to make it even more difficult by making “miniature flans” to decorate my cupcakes.

Flan, as far as I’ve read online, was first invented in the Roman Empire and became really popular in Spain in the Middle Ages. Nowadays, it’s a MUST in any fixed-daily-menu restaurant in our country. It’s usually served with whipped cream.

However, this Project made my heart beat so fast as I was taking the flans out their moulds that I thought I was going to collapse!!! Actually, since I came up with this idea, I’ve found it difficult to sleep… I couldn’t stop picturing myself in the middle of the kitchen with a cupcake on my hand and rest of the flans all over the floor!!!

But it didn’t happen so…

This is the process I followed:

Firstly, I went to Lorey (an AMAZING shop for Kitchen utilities) and bought 2 mini moulds for flans (I also bought a big one, so that I didn’t have to throw away the rest of the flan mixture… and I ended up buying a Cupcake carrier-tray and some cookie cutters… I just couldn’t resist!!!)

Then I cooked the Flans.

I used my grandma’s recipe. Her flans are just AMAZING!!! Delicious!!!!(Note: I didn’t make the liquid caramel myself, as I’m always scared of burning my hands… so I used caramel syrup… but don’t tell my grandma… she would kill me!!!)

Ingredients for the flan:

2 glasses of milk (around 450ml)

3 eggs

4 tbsp sugar

1 cinnamon stick

Put the milk, sugar and cinnamon stick in a saucepan and bring it to boil. As soon as it starts to boil, take it off the heat and leave it to infuse until it’s cool.Beat the eggs and, once the milk+sugar+cinnamon mixture is cool, add them to the mixture.

In the meantime, pour the caramel syrup into the moulds (just the amount needed to cover them with a thin layer of caramel).

Then, add the previous mixture on top using a strainer. I used two mini moulds for the cupcakes and did a big Flan with the rest of it.

Place the moulds in a deep roasting tin and fill with water so it comes halfway up the outside of the ramekin dishes. Bake them until set (the big one took 30 mins… but the small ones took much less time… I had to check constantly).

Leave them to cool as long as they need to set (I let them overnight, just to be safe!!!).

For the batter, I used my basic vanilla cupcakes recipe:

100 gr. butter

100 gr. flour

1/2 tsp. Baking powder

100 gr. Sugar

2 tbsp vanilla sugar

2 eggs

Heat oven to 180C. Mix ingredients as usual, divide the mixture between cases and bake for around 20 mins.

Then I prayed and prayed that the flans had set… then I grabbed one cupcake and a mini flan (still in its mould) with one hand and shook it violently once. Nothing happened. I shook it again and “FLOP”, the flan wasn’t stuck to the mould anymore. I removed the mould and… there it was… my first Flan Cupcake!!!

(You can see my big flan on the background)

Well, I’m so happy this recipe was successful… it was really hard work!!!

I hope you try it at home. They’re delicious!!

More recipes coming soon! (And wish me luck this weekend… my boyfriend’s mates are visiting… I’ll try to bake some cupcakes while preventing them from destroying the flat! Haha)

This is beautiful and incredible. Would you consider posting this on www.instructables.com? Looks like you already have everything in place to make it a very popular project, and it would be a great way to drive traffic back to your site!

flan cake is supposed to be cooked in the same pan, so that they fuse together. I have made a miniture version or flan-cupcake before. The cake floats to the top and the flan cooks on the bottom when you flip it the flan and caramelized sugar sits on top and its delicious.

What did you use to bake them in? Cupcake liners or did you bake them on the pan and then transfer them? I have a big family event coming soon and I would love to make these, I call them "Flancocho or Bizcocho imposible" I am looking to make them mini and I have no idea if the cupcake liners will hold the flan mix. Instead of making caramel I plan to use Ice cream caramel syrup.